In the First Assembly of the People Since 1776
Convened in peace, in the open, and in writing — September 27, 2026
A petition of the undersigned free people of California and of the United States of America — to the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, under 34 U.S.C. § 12601; and to every court, and every lawyer, willing to stand with us.
When, in the course of a working life, a people find that their labor no longer feeds their own families first, it becomes necessary for them to say so plainly, to say it together, and to say it to the institutions built to hear it. When the political bands that should bind a government to its people have instead bound it to itself, the people cannot wait for that government to correct itself. A decent respect for the opinions of our neighbors requires that we state our reasons. We state them here, in our own words, and in our own names.
What we hold to be true. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all people are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness; and that a person's labor belongs first to the person who performs it, and to the family that person feeds. That governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. That no free person should be subject to any tax to which they have not given their own consent, in person or through real representation. That a power over a person's subsistence is a power over that person's will. That a just government shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. That the due administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government. And that those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither. These are the oldest ideas this country has.1–4 The people who first wrote them pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to them. We make that pledge again. Slavery’s Abolition Was Written in 1776. The men who signed in 1776 did not end slavery, and they knew it. Their own livelihoods depended on that labor. Their first draft called the slave trade "cruel war against human nature itself"; the Congress struck it out, because two colonies would not sign with it in and a nation at war needed every vote. So they argued, and they chose. They could not free that labor on that day. They wrote the words that would: all men are created equal. They meant those words to reach past themselves — to every person who would ever labor in America. The First President, George Washington, wished, in his own hand, to see a plan adopted for abolition, and freed his own people by his will.5, 6 And they built the thing that would sustain free people once the words came true: an economy any willing American could enter. A field to crop. A trade to learn. A shop to open. Earn your way, keep what you earn, and owe no master. That was the birth of the American economy, and it was the plan for freedom. It took an ordinance, a war, and an amendment, but the words did their work. Congress guards them today in the forced-labor law, 18 U.S.C. § 1589.What has been turned against us. Today that plan has been turned against the people it was written for. Read each act alone and it looks like housekeeping: a speed camera here, a sales-tax increase there, a fee added to a bill, a gas tax that rises on its own, a registration hold, a tow. Read them together — side by side, year after year, for the better part of two decades — and they are one thing. We declare what that thing is. It is an enterprise: the Governor who signs the cameras and the taxes; the Mayor who raises the rate and the fee; the Attorney General who polices what corporations may add to a bill, and under whom fee upon fee still stands; the agencies, contractors, and collectors who carry it out; and every person associated with them in fact. It takes the instruments of a person's livelihood — the license, the registration, the car, the paycheck — and gives them back only for payment extracted through more labor. Congress has a name for that: forced labor, 18 U.S.C. § 1589. Congress made it racketeering activity, 18 U.S.C. § 1961(1)(B), beside extortion (§ 1951), mail and wire fraud (§§ 1341, 1343 — every notice mailed, every payment demanded online), and witness tampering and retaliation (§§ 1512, 1513). A pattern of those acts, run through an enterprise, violates 18 U.S.C. § 1962. We allege that this is what has been done to us. We are being trafficked — not across a border, but across the hours of our lives.
Our line: two cents of every dollar. In 1776, the taxes that drove a people to revolution took about two cents of every dollar they earned.7 We take that as our line. Below it, a government serves. Above it — without our consent, in person or through real representation — every hour we work to pay is an hour of labor for another party. That is where the course of forced labor begins, and where the predicate begins with it. We do not ask anyone to take this on our word. We ask the Department to measure it. We already know the price, because it has been measured. Researchers at Stanford and Harvard Business School, pooling 228 studies, found that long working hours raise the risk of early death by nearly 20 percent — a toll they compared to secondhand smoke — that high job demands raise the odds of a doctor-diagnosed illness by 35 percent, that fear of losing a job raises the odds of poor health by 50 percent, and that these workplace stressors take more than 120,000 American lives a year and up to 8 percent of the nation's health spending.8, 9 A 2024 review of the medical literature found that long working hours raise the odds of suicidal thoughts by 44 percent — and at fifty-five hours a week, by 65 percent.10 The World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization count 745,000 deaths from stroke and heart disease in a single year traced to long working hours; a study of 603,838 people found fifty-five-hour weeks raise the risk of stroke by a third.11, 12 Behind those numbers are the hours we do not spend with our children, the sleep we do not get, and the neighbors we have lost to despair. We are those numbers. Let facts be submitted to a candid world. They have sent hither swarms of officers, cameras, and license-plate readers to harass our people and eat out their substance — fines generated by machines, collected before any hearing, with no forum where a person may be heard. — They have demanded payment before a hearing — as much as $1,580 to contest a plate frame and a sticker — so that a hearing becomes a thing a person must buy.15 — They have made the family car collateral for every debt: hold the registration, suspend the license, tow the car, sell it at auction; and order "community service," which is forced labor, from those who cannot pay. — They have taxed gasoline at more than sixty cents a gallon and set it to rise each year without a vote; made "temporary" income-tax brackets permanent; raised sales taxes past ten percent; let corporations add fee upon fee to every bill; and sold each one to us as a little temporary safety. — They have spent $24 billion on homelessness and could not tell the State's own auditor where it went — while the fines, holds, and tows that push working people into their cars went on.13 — They have retaliated against those who object. One of us wrote to the Governor and the Mayor and their offices and through their chain-of-command to complain of these things; four traffic stops, excessive force, threat of deadly force, tows, and the loss of his car that is his home on wheels followed. His case is in federal court. This Declaration does not depend on it, and signing does not join it. It stands beside it.Who we are — the class. We who sign are drivers, workers, renters, parents, and taxpayers. Each of us has been forced to pay before being heard, or had our DMV registration held, or car towed, or garnished wages, or taxed beyond our consent — or works beside someone who has and could testify. Our injuries flow from one common system. They raise common questions. Each of our claims is typical of the others. We are many, and growing by the day. Federal law lets a class injured by the same pattern stand together, Fed. R. Civ. P. 23, and gives us our remedies: three times our damages plus attorneys' fees under the racketeering law, 18 U.S.C. § 1964(c); a civil action for forced labor with ten years to file, 18 U.S.C. § 1595; our civil rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, including the rule that no state may impose excessive fines;16 and the Department's own power to sue a government whose officers deprive people of their rights as a matter of practice, 34 U.S.C. § 12601. Our damages are not small. Take forty million people. Take what was taken from each of them above the 2% tax line, every year, for at least ten years. That is the sum. The law trebles it. A draft complaint is attached below, so that any lawyer may read it, and any American may use it. Notice. This Declaration is truthful information about a possible federal offense, delivered to the law enforcement agency of the United States. Any act taken against a signer for signing it is retaliation, 18 U.S.C. § 1513(e), and no case need be pending for that law to apply, 18 U.S.C. § 1512(f)(1). We give notice to the Governor, the State, its Department of Justice, its agencies, its contractors, and every person associated with them in fact: on the first such act, counsel for the class will file an instant lawsuit, for damages, for all of us.
What we are, and who we are not. We are not anti-government. We are not anti-tax. The same generation that refused a stamp tax in 1765 levied a war tax in 1798 to build a navy, put down a tax revolt, and then pardoned its leader. They were right both times. A nation must fund its defense, its borders, and its courts through a Congress the people elect. That is consent. Taxation without it is the wrong we name. We are for limited government and limited taxes — limited in amount, and limited in time — so that a family can keep enough of its labor to live, to rest, to raise its children, and to be free. The money for relief exists. The Department's own National Fraud Enforcement Division, created April 7, 2026, states that more than a trillion dollars in taxpayer funds are at risk each year; in one June 2026 takedown it charged 455 defendants with more than $6.5 billion in fraud.14 Every one of those dollars was earned by a worker first. If that much can be stolen without anyone noticing, that much can be returned or not taxed at all. We therefore declare and petition. (1) That the Department of Justice open an investigation under 34 U.S.C. § 12601 into Gavin Newsom, Karen Bass, and other leaders and officials, for growing California's citation, hold, tow, impound, fee, and collections system and the taxes that feed it; and that it refer the enterprise described here for prosecution under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1589 and 1962. We do not ask the Department to consider. We ask it to act. (2) That no person be required to pay before being heard, and that no ticket, tow, or DMV hold cost a person a job, a license, or a home. (3) That California and its cities grant a permanent emergency tax cut — in the amount found stolen or wasted — for an ongoing period; and that every rate above our 2% tax line be reviewed. (4) That counsel take up this class, using the draft complaint below, and that every signer be heard on their own claim and provided damages. (5) That we will keep rallying American's to petition — lawfully, peacefully, in writing — until relief comes; and that if any branch fails to balance the others, we will carry this Declaration to the next. In good faith and in God We Trust. We sign this of our own God-given free will and under no one's direction. No one paid us. Signing makes no one a party to any lawsuit. We assemble peacefully, and we seek redress through the courts and the Department of Justice, and nowhere else. We are the people who drive to work before dawn and come home after dark. We are the ones the fine finds, the hold stops, and the tow takes. We are not asking for charity. We are asking for what is already ours: the bread our labor earned, the time our families are owed, and a government that keeps the oath its officers swore — to protect and defend the Constitution. That oath is not kept by guarding a document. It is kept, or broken, in the lives of the people whose rights it protects — and it is broken every day those rights are violated. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the rectitude of our intentions, we mutually pledge to each other our names, our labor, and our sacred honor.References · tap to see all 17
Signed, in the two hundred and fifty-first year of American Independence
Add your name and your signature. Draw it on your phone, type it, or upload a photo of it. It is sized to match the others and placed on the Declaration above, beside every other American who signed. Your email and phone are never shown.
One more thing turns your name into pressure: send this to three people who've been over taxed, towed or ticketed. And if you can, the fund keeps Adam in court from the front seat of his car. So please donate.
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DRAFT — TEMPLATE FOR COUNSEL — NOT FILED
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
1. This is a class action on behalf of the people of California who have been made to pay fines, fees, penalties, tow and storage charges, and tax surcharges under threat of losing their registration, their license, their car, or their wages — before any hearing on the merits — and who have been made to labor to pay them.
2. Plaintiffs allege that Defendants, acting together through an association-in-fact enterprise, have for at least ten years operated a system of automated citation, registration holds, license suspensions, tows, impounds, and collections that takes the instruments of a person's livelihood and returns them only upon payment extracted through further labor. Plaintiffs allege that this system meets the definition of forced labor in 18 U.S.C. § 1589, which Congress has made racketeering activity under 18 U.S.C. § 1961(1)(B), and that Defendants' conduct constitutes a pattern of racketeering activity within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1962.
3. Plaintiffs seek treble damages under 18 U.S.C. § 1964(c), compensatory and punitive damages under 18 U.S.C. § 1595 and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, declaratory and injunctive relief, and attorneys' fees and costs.
4. This Court has subject-matter jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1343(a)(3), 18 U.S.C. § 1964(c), and 18 U.S.C. § 1595(a).
5. Venue is proper under 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b) and 18 U.S.C. § 1965(a) because Defendants reside, are found, or transact affairs in this District and a substantial part of the events giving rise to the claims occurred here.
6. Plaintiff [NAME] is a resident of [CITY], California. On [DATE(S)], [he/she] [received an automated citation / had a registration hold placed / had a vehicle towed and impounded / had wages garnished] and paid $[AMOUNT] before any hearing on the merits. [Repeat for each named plaintiff. Attach receipts, notices, and DMV records as exhibits.]
7. Defendant Gavin Newsom is the Governor of California and is sued in his official capacity for declaratory and injunctive relief. Defendant Rob Bonta is the Attorney General of California and is sued in his official capacity. Defendant Karen Bass is the Mayor of Los Angeles and is sued in her official capacity. Defendant [NAME] is the Director of the Department of Motor Vehicles and is sued in [his/her] official capacity.
8. Defendant City of Los Angeles is a municipal corporation. Defendants [TOW OPERATOR(S)], [AUTOMATED-ENFORCEMENT VENDOR(S)], and [COLLECTION CONTRACTOR(S)] are private entities that, under contract with the State or the City, issue, process, enforce, or collect the exactions described below and retain a share of the proceeds. Does 1–100 are persons whose identities are presently unknown who participated in the conduct alleged.
9. The exactions. [Plead each tax, fee, fine, and surcharge with its enacting instrument and date — e.g., the automatic annual gasoline-excise adjustment; the extension of "temporary" income-tax brackets; local sales-tax increases; automated speed-camera citations authorized by AB 645 (2023); registration and license-renewal fees and penalties; tow, impound, and storage charges; collection fees and interest.]
10. The enforcement machine. Citations are generated by automated systems and license-plate readers; unpaid amounts trigger registration holds and license suspensions through interlocking databases; vehicles are towed and impounded and sold; unpaid balances are referred to collection and garnishment. Payment is demanded before any hearing on the merits, and in many instances a hearing is available only upon payment. [Plead specific instances, with dates and amounts, for each named plaintiff.]
11. Junk fees. [Plead the fees added to consumer bills by corporations under contract with or regulated by Defendants, and Defendants' enforcement choices with respect to them.]
12. The labor extracted. Each named plaintiff worked additional hours, took additional employment, or forwent necessities in order to pay the exactions and recover the instruments of his or her livelihood. [Plead hours, wages, and amounts for each named plaintiff.] Plaintiffs who could not pay were ordered to perform "community service," which is labor.
13. The coercion. Defendants obtained this labor and payment by threats of serious harm — the loss of the means of earning a living, the loss of shelter for those living in their vehicles, and the loss of liberty through suspension and impound — and by the abuse and threatened abuse of law and legal process, within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1589(a)(2)–(4) and (c)(2).
14. The mails and wires. Defendants and their contractors mailed notices, demands, and threats of hold, suspension, and impound, and demanded and received payment through interstate wires, in furtherance of the scheme.
15. Retaliation. [Plead any act taken against a plaintiff or class member after complaining to officials, filing suit, or providing information to law enforcement, including signing the Declaration of Independence For Labor delivered to the United States Department of Justice.]
16. The toll. Peer-reviewed research associates long working hours with a nearly 20 percent increase in mortality risk and high job demands with a 35 percent increase in physician-diagnosed illness (Goh J, Pfeffer J, Zenios SA, The Relationship Between Workplace Stressors and Mortality and Health Costs in the United States, 62 Mgmt. Sci. 608 (2016), doi:10.1287/mnsc.2014.2115); long working hours with a 44 percent increase in the odds of suicidal ideation, rising to 65 percent at 55 or more hours per week (Kim J et al., 50 Scand. J. Work Env't & Health 503 (2024), doi:10.5271/sjweh.4182, PMC11472300); 745,000 deaths worldwide in 2016 from ischemic heart disease and stroke attributable to long working hours (Pega F et al., 154 Env't Int'l 106595 (2021)); and a 33 percent higher risk of stroke at 55 or more hours per week (Kivimäki M et al., 386 Lancet 1739 (2015)). [Plead individual health and family consequences for named plaintiffs where applicable.]
17. The Enterprise. Defendants and their agents and contractors constitute an association-in-fact enterprise within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1961(4): a group of persons associated together for the common purpose of generating, enforcing, and collecting the exactions described above and retaining the proceeds, with relationships among those associated, and with longevity sufficient to permit them to pursue that purpose.
18. Predicate acts. Defendants' conduct constitutes racketeering activity under 18 U.S.C. § 1961(1), including: forced labor and trafficking, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1589, 1590; extortion under color of official right and by wrongful use of fear of economic harm, 18 U.S.C. § 1951; mail fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 1341, and wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 1343 [plead the misrepresentations — e.g., the characterization of taxes as temporary, of hearings as available, of fees as lawful]; and tampering with and retaliation against witnesses, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1512, 1513.
19. Pattern. The predicate acts are related — sharing purpose, result, participants, victims, and method — and continuous, having occurred repeatedly over more than ten years and constituting the regular way in which the Enterprise conducts its affairs.
20. Injury. Plaintiffs and the class have been injured in their business and property by reason of the violations, including the amounts paid, the value of vehicles lost, wages garnished, and income lost.
21. Plaintiffs bring this action under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a), (b)(2), and (b)(3) on behalf of the following class: All persons who, from [DATE TEN YEARS BEFORE FILING] to the date of judgment, paid a fine, fee, penalty, tow or storage charge, collection charge, or tax surcharge to Defendants or their agents under threat of registration hold, license suspension, impound, or collection, before any hearing on the merits, or who performed labor in lieu of payment. [Define subclasses as needed — e.g., an Impound Subclass; a Vehicle-Dwelling Subclass; a Retaliation Subclass.]
22. Numerosity. The class numbers in the millions; joinder is impracticable.
23. Commonality. Common questions include whether the Enterprise exists; whether Defendants' conduct constitutes forced labor under § 1589; whether the exactions are collected before a meaningful hearing; whether the fines are excessive; and whether the class is entitled to damages and injunctive relief.
24. Typicality. The named plaintiffs' claims arise from the same system and the same conduct as the claims of the class.
25. Adequacy. The named plaintiffs have no conflicts with the class and have retained counsel experienced in class and RICO litigation.
26. Rule 23(b)(2) and (b)(3). Defendants have acted on grounds that apply generally to the class, so that injunctive and declaratory relief is appropriate for the class as a whole; and common questions predominate over individual questions, and a class action is superior to other methods of adjudication.
COUNT I — Violation of 18 U. S.C. § 1962(c) (against the private contractor Defendants, the individual Defendants in their personal capacities as to damages, and Does 1–100). 27. Plaintiffs incorporate the foregoing paragraphs. 28. Each such Defendant is a person employed by or associated with the Enterprise who conducted or participated in the conduct of its affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity. 29. Plaintiffs and the class were injured in their business or property by reason of the violation and are entitled to treble damages, costs, and attorneys' fees under 18 U.S.C. § 1964(c).
COUNT II — Violation of 18 U. S.C. § 1962(d) (same Defendants). 30. Plaintiffs incorporate the foregoing paragraphs. 31. Each such Defendant agreed to the commission of the violations alleged in Count I.
COUNT III — Forced Labor, 18 U. S.C. §§ 1589, 1595 (against all Defendants except the State officials in their official capacities as to damages). 32. Plaintiffs incorporate the foregoing paragraphs. 33. Defendants knowingly obtained the labor and services of Plaintiffs and the class by means of serious harm or threats of serious harm, by the abuse or threatened abuse of law or legal process, and by a scheme intended to cause Plaintiffs to believe that failure to perform would result in serious harm; and Defendants knowingly benefited, financially and by receiving things of value, from participation in a venture they knew or should have known was engaged in such conduct. 34. Plaintiffs and the class are entitled to compensatory and punitive damages and attorneys' fees under 18 U.S.C. § 1595(a). This claim is timely under 18 U.S.C. § 1595(c).
COUNT IV — 42 U. S.C. § 1983, Fourteenth Amendment (Procedural Due Process) (against the City, the contractor Defendants, and the State officials for declaratory and injunctive relief). 35. Plaintiffs incorporate the foregoing paragraphs. 36. Defendants, acting under color of state law and pursuant to official policy and custom, deprived Plaintiffs and the class of property — money, vehicles, licenses, and registrations — without notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard before the deprivation.
COUNT V — 42 U. S.C. § 1983, Eighth Amendment (Excessive Fines) (same Defendants). 37. Plaintiffs incorporate the foregoing paragraphs. 38. The fines, penalties, and forfeitures imposed are grossly disproportional to the gravity of the offenses for which they are imposed. The Excessive Fines Clause applies to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.
COUNT VI — 42 U. S.C. § 1983, Fourth Amendment (Unreasonable Seizure) (same Defendants). 39. Plaintiffs incorporate the foregoing paragraphs. 40. The seizure and continued retention of class members' vehicles without a warrant, and after any justification for the initial seizure had ended, was unreasonable.
COUNT VII — Declaratory and Injunctive Relief, 28 U. S.C. §§ 2201–2202 (against the State officials in their official capacities and the City). 41. Plaintiffs incorporate the foregoing paragraphs. 42. An actual controversy exists. Plaintiffs seek a declaration that the practices alleged are unlawful and an injunction prohibiting payment-before-hearing, registration holds and license suspensions for inability to pay, and impound without prompt post-seizure hearing.
WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs, on behalf of themselves and the class, pray for: (a) an order certifying the class and appointing Plaintiffs and their counsel to represent it; (b) a declaration that Defendants' practices are unlawful; (c) preliminary and permanent injunctive relief as set out in Count VII; (d) treble damages under 18 U.S.C. § 1964(c); (e) compensatory and punitive damages under 18 U.S.C. § 1595 and 42 U.S.C. § 1983; (f) restitution and disgorgement; (g) attorneys' fees and costs under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1964(c) and 1595(a) and 42 U.S.C. § 1988; (h) pre- and post-judgment interest; and (i) such other relief as the Court deems just.
DEMAND FOR JURY TRIAL. Plaintiffs demand a trial by jury on all claims so triable.
Dated: ____________ Respectfully submitted,
____________________________
[ATTORNEY NAME], [BAR NO.]
[FIRM]
[ADDRESS] · [PHONE] · [EMAIL]
Attorneys for Plaintiffs and the Proposed Class
A. Sovereign immunity. A State and its officials in their official capacities are not "persons" under § 1983 for damages (Will v. Michigan Dep't of State Police, 491 U.S. 58 (1989)); plead official-capacity claims for prospective relief only (Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908)). The City is liable under § 1983 for its policies and customs (Monell v. Dep't of Social Servs., 436 U.S. 658 (1978)). Name private contractors and individuals in their personal capacities for damages.
B. Government entities and RICO. In the Ninth Circuit, municipal entities are not subject to RICO treble damages (Lancaster Community Hospital v. Antelope Valley Hospital District, 940 F.2d 397 (9th Cir. 1991)). Build the RICO counts around the private vendors, contractors, and individuals; treat the public bodies as the enterprise's instruments.
C. Tax Injunction Act and comity. 28 U.S.C. § 1341 bars federal courts from enjoining the assessment or collection of state taxes where a plain, speedy, and efficient state remedy exists; comity extends the bar (Levin v. Commerce Energy, Inc., 560 U.S. 413 (2010)). Plead fines, fees, penalties, tow and storage charges, and collection charges as regulatory exactions rather than taxes; seek damages rather than injunctions against tax collection; and plead facts showing any state remedy is not plain, speedy, or efficient.
D. Section 1589 elements. Coercion must be by serious harm or threats of it, physical restraint, abuse or threatened abuse of law or legal process, or a scheme causing belief of serious harm; "serious harm" includes financial harm sufficiently serious to compel a reasonable person to continue laboring (§ 1589(c)(2)). Plead the hold, suspension, impound, and collection threats as legal-process abuse, and the loss of shelter for vehicle-dwellers as serious harm. No court has adopted a percentage-of-income test; the two-percent line in the Declaration is a policy demand, not an element.
E. Limitations. Civil RICO: four years (Agency Holding Corp. v. Malley-Duff & Assocs., 483 U.S. 143 (1987)). TVPA: ten years (18 U.S.C. § 1595(c)). Section 1983 in California: two years, borrowed from Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1, with federal accrual rules.
F. Supporting authority to check. Timbs v. Indiana, 586 U.S. 146 (2019) (Excessive Fines Clause incorporated); Brewster v. Beck, 859 F.3d 1194 (9th Cir. 2017) (continued impound as a Fourth Amendment seizure); United States v. City of Ferguson, No. 4:16-cv-00180-CDP (E.D. Mo.) (consent decree over a fine-and-fee system); Mackintosh v. Newsom, No. 2:26-cv-08508 (C.D. Cal.) (individual action pleading the same enterprise).
G. This template was prepared by a non-lawyer for use by counsel. It is not legal advice and creates no attorney-client relationship.
Between 2017 and 2019, Adam was building something that didn't exist yet: a technology startup that created a new sector he named — and trademarked — "Rideshare for Healthcare." The plan was simple and ambitious: get seniors, patients, and people with disabilities to their care affordably today, then carry the company into the artificial-intelligence era by 2028–2030 to drive healthcare costs down for every American. (Compl. ¶ 29)
iHug Healthcare — Book A Healthcare Ride Instantly.
What Adam didn't know, his filings allege, is that while he kept repairing and debugging his app to prepare for launch, Jerry Wang of Uber's Marketplace Analytics team — the "MA" unit described in the Jacobs Letter, kept deleting code while gathering his trade secrets and intellectual property for Uber, et al. While another Uber employee, Josef Acebedo of Uber's Strategic Services Group "SSG" contacted all of Adam's friends, family, and medical providers who drove healthcare patients to their appointments for the startup, and slandered him. These two acts halted the startup in its tracks.(Compl. ¶ 29; Dkt. 16)
Read Jacobs LetterJacobs Letter was a key piece of evidence turned over to Federal Judge William Alsup by the U.S. Department of Justice during the high-profile Waymo v. Uber trial.↗Building this new sector put him somewhere almost no one else stood. While writing and testing his own systems, the complaint alleges, he witnessed first-hand software functionalities that were under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice in the high-profile Waymo v. Uber Technologies, Inc., Case No. 3:17-cv-00939 (N.D. Cal.) — because he found them inside his own systems and devices. That is the case whose district court issued an "Order of Referral to United States Attorney" to investigate Uber. He is, as pled, a witness to the criminal Uber investigation — one who took what he found and put it before a federal court. (Compl. ¶¶ 3, 6, 29; Referral Request at 2–3)
So he started digging. Conducting his own investigation into Uber, he discovered forensic evidence connected to the DOJ's case — sitting inside his startup's own systems, dating to roughly 2018–2020.
The digging came at a price. During that investigation he was constructively terminated from his job and his income fell to zero. He alleges he was influenced, through his iPhone, toward working from his car for quick cash during the COVID-19 Pandemic — and over the years that followed, he and his wife wore down, emotionally and financially, while he kept investigating and preparing to file his lawsuit. Then, about four weeks after he filed the lawsuit, his mother died suddenly after receiving routine needle injected back-pain medication. A physician at Stanford Hospital in Silicon Valley, later explained the circumstances of her death were medically implausible.
With his employment and income gone, doing contracting work from his car alongside his wife was his only option — but that came at a price too, it unknowingly — and squarely put him in the bullseye of the Scheme the federal complaint describes. (Compl. ¶ 3)
And then the Scheme did what the complaint says it is built to do. As fines, penalties, fees, and administrative holds stacked up, the car stopped being just his workplace. It became his home. By the time of the stops it was his home, his office, and his only way to earn — his wife having left the United States, out of fear of the escalating retaliation — Adam went on earning $50–$275 a day helping seniors, hospital patients, people with disabilities, and retirees, and building his case at night. (Compl. ¶ 3)
These are just a few times of many of their breakdowns.
What it cost at home — part one.
The retaliation eroded their sense of safety.
What it cost at home — part two.
iHug Healthcare — Closed Down.
ffmpeg -i fall-2.mov -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -movflags +faststart fall-2.mp4 and every browser plays it instantly.)What it cost at home — part three.
He kept working from the car and teaching himself law at night — while, as alleged, parking enforcement and police tracked his car's location through ALPR and Flock surveillance cameras and cited him again and again from among California's thousands of vehicle-codes. The pattern pulled his attention off the Uber case and onto the immediate threat of continued citations, registration holds and impoundment of his car. So he did the most American thing a citizen can do: he petitioned his government — peacefully, lawfully, in writing.
He mailed formal Legal Notices accusing Governor Gavin Newsom, Mayor Karen Bass's office, and other public officials of causing the very homelessness they publicly lament, describing "the Scheme of fine-and-fee practices that push American Citizens into homelessness." The notice quoted the government's own citations back to it — "if you are experiencing homelessness, please inquire about our Community Assistance Parking Program (CAPP)" — and said the quiet part in writing: that officials had "appropriated $10's of billions of dollars from tax payers and the federal government" to address the crisis while "knowingly causing homelessness." (Compl. ¶¶ 6, 17–18, 131; Ex. V, PageID 92–93)
Court record · Compl. Ex. V (PageID 92–93)Read the April 18, 2024 petition and admission on citations — filed with the complaint↗Now hold that notice against the public record. Nine days earlier, the California State Auditor had reported that the State allocated nearly $24 billion for homelessness and housing over five years — and could not consistently track what the money achieved, while homelessness climbed anyway. Tens of billions raised in the name of ending homelessness; a citation-hold-tow Scheme, his filings allege, manufacturing it one working person at a time — encampments that "once filled a few blocks and now stretch for miles," in the referral's words, "not an accident of the city, but a symptom of the Scheme." Billions to fight the fall. Millions collected from the falling. He put that arithmetic in writing to the government atop the system and asked them to dismiss one citation. You already know what the complaint says came next. (Compl. ¶ 35; Dkt. 14 ¶¶ 3–4; Cal. State Auditor Rep. 2023-102.1)
Review The PDFPDF: Cal. State Auditor, Rep. 2023-102.1 (Apr. 2024); Referral Req. at 3↗What answered those petitions, the complaint alleges, was not correction. It was escalation. Four police stops — August 28, 2024; January 10, 2025; March 3, 2025; July 10–11, 2026 — that the complaint pleads were "not independent enforcement events but coordinated responses to his protected activity," naming the demand letters among that activity, and part of the years of retaliation he and his wife had been living under to stop his Uber investigation, case and his witness testimony related to the DOJ criminal investigation into Uber, et al.
Each stop, as pled, was worse than the last: citation; then officers gripping their firearms in intimidation; then physical assault and battery; then impoundment, arrest — and a charge that was never filed. That arrest record now threatens the contracting work that keeps him off the sidewalks of Los Angeles or worse, Skid Row.
Count what the complaint counts: at least fourteen police officers. Questioning that continued after he invoked his right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Searches and seizures after he invoked his right to be free of them under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Arm-twisting that permanently injured his shoulder. Handcuffs ratcheted so tight they gashed his wrist — a wound that's still healing and forming a permanent scar. A naked strip search for a knife that didn't exist. His dog, Brownie, seized. And the car — his home — towed and impounded for a third time all while paying excessive taxation at each exaction.
One moment tells you everything about the second stop: Adam handed the officer the citation from the first stop — written proof the identical condition had already been cited. The officer read it. And cited him again anyway — a retaliatory citation, as the complaint alleges.
Understand what a stop means for a man whose home has wheels. Every stop is an eviction notice: one more tow, one more day of storage fees, and the last thing standing between him and the sidewalks of Los Angeles — gone. This, Adam alleges, is the corrupted public system that manufactures homelessness, and the weapon used to retaliate against him for saying so. (Compl. ¶¶ 2, 4, 84–87; §§ V.B–E)
Watch footage lodged in federal court of the fourth stop — after two years of written petitions, this is what answered them.
The stops left more than fear. The complaint alleges the arm-twisting aggravated injuries from the third stop and permanently damaged his right shoulder — muscle trauma through his shoulders and back, wrists blistered and gashed by handcuffs — and the court record now holds right-shoulder injury declarations, worsening symptoms after the fourth stop, and further imaging set for October 2026. His primary-care physician has since found something more: degenerative bone disease in that shoulder. He cannot work at full capacity anymore — and his work was his body: hauling goods for seniors, retirees, military veterans, and healthcare patients who depend on him. The system didn't just take his home. It took part of the strength he needs to rebuild whatever life he has left after losing his job, his home, his mother, and his wife and marriage — losses he carries while prosecuting this case alone. (Compl. ¶ 2, § V.C; Objections to Dkt. 18; diagnosis per Mr. Mackintosh's medical report)
Watch footage of his arm clicking and popping.
It took years to get here. After years of retaliation for witnessing federal crimes, as alleged in the Waymo case, Adam’s home was taken from him. His job was constructively terminated. His income fell to zero more than once. Citations stacked into thousands of dollars. He lost his wife, his truck, and his car. He was left with nothing to live for — and he made a decision: to turn that pain, injury, and destruction into a promise that no other American would be put through the Scheme.
On July 28, 2026, he kept it. Adam turned his legal work fully toward the Scheme and filed this federal racketeering, public-corruption, and civil-rights complaint — pro se, from that car — telling the court he would litigate his claims from the driver’s seat if he has to. He means it. This site exists so he doesn’t have to do it alone. (Compl. ¶¶ 3, 6)
Entries mirror the court's official docket, pulled from PACER via the free RECAP archive (CourtListener) and the court's own filing feed. Documents hosted here open in the reader on this page.
Follow @cryptobrosquad for filing-day videos, hearing updates, and the story behind the case — posted from the driver's seat. Like, comment, and share a video: every share is one more American who can't be processed quietly.
American cities and states collect billions of dollars every year in parking fines, towing and storage charges, late penalties, and DMV fees — and for households living paycheck to paycheck, one citation can start a slide that ends in a lost job, a lost car, or a lost home. Whether you vote red, blue, or not at all, you've felt it: the ticket priced higher than the offense, the registration hold that stops you from legally driving to the job that would pay it, the impound lot charging by the day. The referral request in this case puts it plainly: people's vehicles, money, and property have been taken over the decades because they could not afford to pay — "setting them down the path of homelessness in California." (Dkt. 14 Referral Request at 3)
This case asks a federal court to examine that system under the Constitution — the Fourth Amendment, the Excessive Fines Clause, and due process — and asks the Department of Justice to review it for everyone. A win here doesn't send money to supporters; it seeks something bigger: court orders and federal review aimed at stopping the practices themselves, so you can live free, without worry of being over taxed, cited, towed and forced down the homeless path.
Adam filed and aruged in court to protect himself. He kept filing and arguing to protect and guard everyone else. When Adam files, argues, and moves — the government acts on it. The defense will say a pro se litigant can't move the system. Eight years of dated public record say otherwise. What began as one man's fight has become something bigger than himself: a record of filings and arguments set side by side with what Congress, the Senate, and the Department of Justice did next — acts drafted, laws passed, hearings held, and now a Mayor called to testify. Below, in Adam's own words. Every date and document is public record you can open yourself.
After Adam argued in federal court, beginning in 2022, that the exploitation of Americans' private data — children's data foremost — is a harm government has a first duty to prevent (Mackintosh v. Cook, No. 2:24-cv-05854, C.D. Cal., Dkt. 1), California signed a thirteen-bill package regulating how social-media and AI platforms treat minors — including a ban on addictive algorithmic feeds for users under sixteen, with penalties up to $1 million per child, and safety rules for AI companion chatbots. Governor's announcement, Sept. 10, 2026.
After Adam's federal referral request and objections put the DMV's fee cascade on the federal record in America's Founders' own terms — his referral asks the Court to refer the pattern alleged to the U.S. Attorney and the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, under 34 U.S.C. § 12601, and measures the Scheme against the founding generation's own words: the Declaration of Independence's "a long train of abuses" and its grievance at being deprived "in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury"; Alexander Hamilton's warning that "a power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will" (The Federalist No. 79); Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural, that government "shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned"; James Madison's "that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own"; Goerge Washington's "The due administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good Government"; and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, art. VI — "[t]here shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude" in the territory "otherwise than in the punishment of crimes" — words the Thirteenth Amendment later wrote into the Constitution and Congress enforces today through 18 U.S.C. § 1589. On that record he argued that a system which strips a person of the means of living and then demands his labor to buy them back presents the forced-labor dynamic § 1589 describes, an enumerated racketeering predicate, and that a citizen's labor extracted as payment for exactions never adjudicated as crimes stands within the evil those words were written to forbid (Referral, Dkt. 14; Compl. ¶¶ 5, 21, 79, 81–82A, 94–94A, 96). In his objections he put numbers to it: a $171 registration renewal grown to a $1,509.89 demand through stacked citations, late fees, and surcharges — a 782% increase — is not a fee but a taking of labor also known as Human Trafficking, as alleged, aided and abetted by Gavin Newsom, et al. through excessive taxation. (Objections ¶ 10, filed Aug. 2026; Compl. ¶¶ 5, 60B, 70–71).
Eleven days after those objections were filed, on Sept. 9, 2026, a candidate for Governor published a plan to abolish the DMV as a standalone agency. The Internet Archive's earliest capture of that page is dated Sept. 9, 2026 (Wayback Machine captures). The plan's stated pledges: a three-month audit of every DMV function, office, lease, contract, and cost, followed by a "No More DMV Act" to eliminate the standalone agency; vehicle registration cut to a flat $73 per vehicle per year; routine title, registration, plate, and renewal transactions moved to county offices, certified local service centers, or private providers; licensing and records moved online, with a smaller state back-end kept for secure records, REAL IDs, fraud investigation, and safety enforcement; no field office closed until an equal or better local option exists; and surplus DMV properties offered to community colleges and apprenticeship programs. Covered by ABC7 and FOX 11; critiqued by Streetsblog. Set the two numbers side by side: the $1,509.89 the machine demanded of Adam for a $171 renewal, and the $73 flat fee now proposed for every Californian. Adam's case does not endorse any candidate; it documents that the fee machine he pleaded in July — in the language of 1776, 1787, and 1865 — is, by September, a statewide campaign issue. The allegations remain allegations; the quotations are the Founders' own; the pledges are the candidate's, quoted from his published plan.
After Adam filed a federal RICO and civil-rights complaint alleging public corruption on 7.28.2026 — pleading that the citation–tow–impound machinery operating under the banner of homelessness policy in Los Angeles functions as a racketeering enterprise, a fine-and-fee cascade that pushes working Californians out of their cars and into the street, enforced through coordinated police stops in retaliation for his petitioning the courts (Compl. ¶¶ 1–6, 81, 119) — the U.S. House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, 36 days later, opened an investigation into fraud in LA's federally funded homelessness services and called Mayor Karen Bass to testify before Congress on Sept. 15, 2026. The subcommittee's letter names corrupt contracting at LAHSA and cites Skid Row by name. Covered by LAist and the Los Angeles Times.
The accountability link is personal. While litigating this case, Adam applied to LAHSA itself for its own Problem-Solving Assistance Funds — the program LAHSA's website advertises under its "problem-solving strategies": active listening, conflict mediation with a landlord or family, reality testing, thinking outside the box, and direct funds to keep a person from landing on the street. He was denied. His request for something as basic as where he could take a shower went unanswered. Mayor Bass has said publicly, in hearings and on the news, that these programs keep Angelenos off the street; when the program was tested by a working man one tow away from the sidewalk, it did not. That is why the congressional letter about fraud in LAHSA's federal funding is not a coincidence to Adam but a confirmation: his pre-suit demand, attached to the complaint, already asserted that these officials appropriated tens of billions of dollars to fight homelessness while the Scheme itself was manufacturing it (Compl. Ex. V at 91–92) — and Congress is now asking where that money went. Adam's account; LAHSA application that he was denied from filing out, and denial is retained as evidence.
After Adam's July 28, 2026 complaint and his pre-suit demand (Compl. Ex. V at 91–92) asserted that officials appropriated tens of billions of dollars to fight homelessness while the Scheme manufactured it, a federal judge — ordering the release of $241 million in frozen federal funds to Los Angeles' homeless services authority — wrote that the agency is "plagued by accusations of fraud and financial mismanagement." Source.
After Adam moved, on July 8, 2024, for a sanction that would limit the taxes and fees government extracts from Americans for as long as their data had been exploited (Mackintosh v. Cook, Dkt. 1 at 62, Severe Sanction #10), federal tax law enacted July 4, 2025 created a capped deduction for overtime pay — a proposal first announced Sept. 12, 2024 — and a deduction for auto-loan interest. Summary of the provisions; Bipartisan Policy Center. Note: the "no tax on tips" proposal was announced June 9, 2024 — before Adam's motion — and is not listed.
After Adam's July 8, 2024 filing argued that data practices designed to exploit children and teenagers for profit are a constitutional harm, California enacted SB 976, the Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act, prohibiting platforms from serving addictive algorithm-driven feeds to minors without parental consent. Governor's announcement, Sept. 20, 2024.
After Adam argued in his federal filings against Apple that the creation, tracking, and sale of Americans' personal data without their knowledge or consent violates their constitutional rights, lawmakers unveiled The American Privacy Rights Act — bipartisan legislation giving Americans the right to control where their information goes and prohibiting Big Tech from tracking, predicting, and manipulating people's behavior for profit without consent.
After Adam caught what he alleged in sworn filings to be fabricated evidence and perjury by Apple's attorneys in open court — in the iPhone-backdoor matter, Mackintosh v. Apple, Inc. et al., No. 3:20-cv-09334-VC (N.D. Cal.) — and prevailed, then refused to let the matter be gatekept in California, carrying the fight into multiple motions across multiple federal courts including the Southern District of Florida (No. 9:23-cv-80316-AMC, Dkt. 4-1) and arguing that Apple's counsel perpetrated a fraud upon the court to conceal the company's control over devices and user data used against the very Americans who buy and trust Apple products, the United States Department of Justice filed its landmark antitrust case against Apple. Read the DOJ complaint.
After Adam moved to recuse the federal judge presiding over his California case against Apple — arguing in his motion that Judge Vince Chhabria held Apple stock, a holding Adam's wife, Alanna, uncovered in the judge's own financial disclosures, and that the court had allowed Apple to cure its misconduct mid-case and then dismissed the claims against it, which Adam argued was not merely bias but a corrupt use of judicial power that stood to benefit the judge's Apple holdings — Congress introduced the Judicial Ethics and Anti-Corruption Act of 2023, requiring federal judges to be transparent about their financial interests.
After Adam argued in federal court, grounding his briefs in the Declaration of Independence, that data practices designed to exploit teens and children for profit betray the government's first duty to protect its people, lawmakers introduced COPPA 2.0 (source: markey.senate.gov) — an update to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act outlawing the data practices that fuel harmful algorithms targeting kids and teenagers.
After Adam filed Rule 60(d)(3) "fraud upon the Court" motions across multiple federal courts nationwide — including a 202-page motion — arguing that judgments entered by judges with undisclosed financial interests in the corporations who's attorneys fabricated evidence and perjured themselves that was ignored by the same judge, is fraud on the judiciary itself, Congress advanced the Courthouse Ethics and Transparency Act, requiring judges to promptly disclose stock trades and financial interests in corporations.
After Adam brought RICO allegations against Apple during his litigation, arguing that the company's conduct toward the people who build on and buy its platform amounted to a racketeering enterprise, the Senate convened the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee Hearing on Competition in App Stores, where Spotify, Match, and other developers accused Apple and Google of anti-competitive practices and unjustified developer fees.
After Adam filed his earliest litigation, arguments, and legal briefs putting the dominance of Big Tech before the federal courts, Congress opened a series of hearings on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law, examining the dominance of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.
Nothing here asks you to take anyone's word for it. These are the actual federal court filings in the Adam Mackintosh v. Gavin Newsom, et al., No. 2:26-cv-08508-KK-KES (C.D. Cal., Western Division). Defendants have not been found liable; every allegation remains to be proven at trial — that's exactly what your support makes possible.
Racketeering, Public Corruption, and Civil Rights Complaint — 15 claims including RICO (18 U.S.C. § 1962(c), (d)), First, Fourth, Eighth & Fourteenth Amendment violations under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, excessive fines, and California's Bane Act. Prays for not less than $4.1 million, return of property, and an injunction stopping the enforcement-and-collection cascade.
Read the complaintAn ex parte application asking the court to order the DMV to release the registration hold (or issue a temporary operating permit), halt collection on the disputed amounts, and preserve all body-cam, dash-cam, and license-plate-reader evidence from the four stops. Includes Adam's sworn declaration and a proposed order.
Read the applicationAsks the court, if the evidence bears out the pattern alleged, to refer the matter for federal pattern-or-practice review — "so that any relief may extend beyond Mr. Mackintosh to other American Citizens subjected to the Scheme." This is the document that makes this everyone's case.
Read the referral requestA magistrate judge issued a Report and Recommendation (Dkt. 18) at the early screening stage. Adam has filed detailed objections and asked the district judge for de novo review — the stage where a law firm's help matters most. This is the fight your contribution funds.
Read the objectionsAdam is litigating a federal RICO and civil-rights case against a governor, a mayor, two cities, a police department, and the DMV — from the driver's seat of the car they keep trying to take, with a shoulder the complaint alleges officers permanently injured, which now limits how much work his body can do. Federal civil cases like this one commonly take two and a half years or more from filing to trial, and a $10,000 fund barely covers one year. Here is the honest math for going the distance — every dollar accounted for:
About $833 a month across a 2.5-year federal case: vehicle payments and the $3,600 catalytic-converter repair the registration depends on, registration and smog compliance, phone and internet for legal research and electronic filing, printing and service of court documents, and basic survival while the case is litigated — a budget most defendants' law firms bill in a week.
Courts may ask a volunteer lawyer to take an indigent civil plaintiff's case, but appointment is rare and entirely discretionary. This reserve exists for the likely event that no counsel is appointed: a retainer for a civil-rights firm at the moment it matters most — including the class question, because a pro se plaintiff can win his own case, but only licensed counsel can represent a class. If the court does appoint counsel, this fund rolls into litigation costs under the same public accounting.
GoFundMe doesn't allow its donation page to be embedded on outside sites — so instead of a broken box, here's the direct, secure link. It opens in its own window with this page waiting behind it.
Donate securely on GoFundMe ↗This case needs promoters — influencers, podcasters, organizers, anyone with reach. So here's a standing offer, in writing:
Paid from the fund to the one promoter who verifiably drives the GoFundMe past $10,000. Final amount within that range is set by verified impact.
A further award to the promoter who verifiably drives the campaign to the full $35,000 goal.
You must run a real campaign and prove it moved the money. Share the site as https://viewit.channel/story/?ref=YOURNAME and reference your name or handle in your posts; proof means timestamped posts plus analytics — our Google Analytics referral data, GoFundMe donation timing against your posting dates, screenshots of your reach. One award per milestone, to the promoter whose campaign demonstrably drove it. Awards are paid from raised funds only after the milestone clears and GoFundMe disburses. Disclosure is mandatory: U.S. FTC rules require you to tell your audience you may be paid for this promotion (a simple "#ad — promoter program at viewit.channel/story" satisfies it); undisclosed promotion disqualifies. This is an independent promotional award, not employment; determinations are made in good faith on the evidence and are final; void where prohibited. To enter: post first, then submit your name, links, and analytics through the contact form with the word PROMOTER.
No promises, no politics — just a working man's federal case against the Scheme, and your voice carrying it. Win or lose, we call out the Scheme. Every share below is one more American who can't be processed quietly.
Tap to open full size, long-press (or right-click) to save, post with the hashtags. News & media: these images, the message above, and everything in The Case File are free to republish with a link back.
You are not alone — every American you see in these videos, were once vibrant, loving, and contributing to our society, until the Scheme started working to take all their property.
Were you towed into a debt spiral? Is a DMV hold standing between you and your job? Did fines push you to the edge of — or into — living in your vehicle? Your story matters three ways: it shows the public this is a pattern, it can be shown to law firms evaluating a class action (which requires licensed counsel — see the retainer fund above), and if you choose, it can be sworn into a declaration that courts can actually consider.
If you landed here searching "how to fight a parking ticket," "how to dismiss a citation," or "DMV registration hold," this section is for you — no donation required. General information for California, not legal advice; procedures vary by city and your situation:
"Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it..."
— The Declaration of Independence (1776)
"...when any system of government power becomes destructive of those ends through an excessive number of ordinances... it is the right and the duty of the people to seek its correction through the lawful institutions built for that purpose. This Court, and the Department of Justice, are those institutions."
— Referral Request, Mackintosh v. Newsom (2026)
That's this campaign in two sentences, written 250 years apart. Not a riot, not a party, not a slogan that dies after an election — a case, a court, and a country's founding promise, pursued through free speech, peaceful assembly, and the rule of law.
Full disclosure, because this campaign runs on honesty: Viewit is a social video platform founded by Adam — the same build-something spirit that started this story. Use promo code 50OFF for 50% off a membership , and proceeds help fund this litigation and keep him housed in the vehicle while the case is fought. Upload your own testimony on Viewit with #FinedIntoHomelessness and it may be featured on this page.
Millions of Californians search "pay parking citation" every year and send the money without knowing three things. First: paying generally ends your right to contest — the moment the fine is paid, the case is closed. Second: you have 21 days to request a free Initial Review with LADOT (online at ladotparking.org or 24/7 at (866) 561-9742), and if you can't afford to pay first, a Pre-Payment Waiver or payment plan may apply — details in Know Your Rights. Third: unpaid citations feed the exact Scheme this case challenges — DMV registration holds, tows, impound fees — so whatever you decide, decide fast and decide informed. Pay if it's right for you. But know what you're buying, and what you're giving up, before you do.
Online at ladotparking.org, by phone at (866) 561-9742, or by mail per the citation's instructions. Ask about installment payment plans and the Community Assistance Parking Program (CAPP) if you're experiencing homelessness — the program named on the citations in this very case file. This is general information, not legal advice.
Start with the free written "initial review" from the issuing agency before the deadline on the ticket, then an administrative hearing if denied, then court review. Bring photos of signage and your vehicle. See the full step-by-step in Know Your Rights above. (General information, not legal advice.)
Yes — unpaid parking penalties and certain fees are reported to the DMV and can block registration renewal until paid, which is exactly the mechanism this lawsuit challenges as unconstitutional when it strips people of the ability to legally drive to the jobs that would let them pay. Ask the DMV for an itemized accounting and check the agency's dispute procedures. (As alleged, Compl. ¶ 5)
Mackintosh v. Newsom, et al., No. 2:26-cv-08508-KK-KES (C.D. Cal.), filed July 28, 2026: a pro se federal complaint alleging racketeering, public corruption, and civil-rights violations arising from four traffic stops and the fine-fee-hold-tow cascade that followed, seeking damages, injunctions, and referral to the DOJ Civil Rights Division. All filings are posted above. Defendants deny liability and nothing has been finally adjudicated.
No — and be wary of anyone who promises that. Donations here are gifts that fund the litigation and Adam's basic stability while he fights it. What supporters "get" is what the case seeks for everyone: an end to pay-to-be-heard requirements, registration-hold coercion, and confiscatory fee stacking — plus total transparency, with every filing and expenditure update posted publicly.
No. Signing is public advocacy, not testimony, and sharing a story is not joining the case. If you check the box saying you're open to it, you may be contacted about a sworn declaration — a formal written statement under penalty of perjury — which is the kind of thing courts can actually consider, and which a future law firm could use in evaluating broader action. Participation is always your choice.
Three tiers: (1) request a free Initial Review with the Parking Violations Bureau within 21 days — online, by mail, or at (866) 561-9742; (2) if denied, request an Administrative Hearing within 21 days, asking for a Pre-Payment Waiver if you can't pay the penalty first; (3) appeal a final decision to Superior Court within 30 days. Full steps in Know Your Rights. (General information, not legal advice.)
CAPP is LADOT's own program for people experiencing homelessness who receive parking citations — the program named on the citations Adam attached to his April 2024 petition as the City's acknowledgment that it cites people living in their cars. If you are enrolled, contest citations by phone at (866) 561-9742 rather than online. (Compl. Ex. V)
The defendants include elected officials, because the complaint alleges the system they oversee — but the campaign is aimed at the Scheme, not a party. Fines, tows, and holds don't check your voter registration. The petition is addressed to leaders of every stripe, including Governor Newsom and the candidates running to succeed him, Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton among them, because whoever leads California next inherits this system. This site is a private civil-litigation support campaign — it is not a candidate, party, or ballot-measure committee, and it does not solicit contributions for any election.